How Much Our Honeymoon 7 Day Carnival Cruise Cost Us – Part 1

Have you ever wondered how much other people spend on vacations or honeymoons? Well today is your lucky day because I’m sharing our cost report from our recent 7 day honeymoon Carnival cruise vacation! Hopefully this can help you plan how much your upcoming cruise or vacation will cost.

How Much Our 7 Day Carnival Cruise Cost Us

We took a 7 day Carnival Western Caribbean cruise out of Port Canaveral on one of Carnival’s newer cruise ships, the Carnival Dream. We knew this cruise would be more expensive than our last cruise, a 5 day Bahamas cruise on the Carnival Ecstasy that we did our first cruise cost report on about a year ago.

Costs Before We Left For Our Cruise

The first and most obvious cost of our cruise was the base cruise fare. This cost us $429 each or $858 total. We paid this cost in full up front. When we booked our cruise was also had to pay for port fees and other taxes for our specific itinerary, which cost us $176.88. We ended up paying $1,034.88 up front for our cruise, port fees and taxes. If that was all it cost it would have been an amazing bargain, but there were many other costs not included in our base fare.

We decided to pay a few other costs up front before we left so we didn’t have any expenses we’d forget about. The only other mandatory expense (in our minds) we paid before we left was gratuities. Carnival suggests $11.50 per person per day for gratuities that will automatically be charged on your onboard account if you don’t prepay them. You can go to guest services and reduce them if you feel you didn’t get the service you expected, but we never had this problem. Prepaid gratuities cost us $161.00 for our 7 day cruise.

One Of Our Excursion Destinations

The final cost we paid before we left was for our shore excursions, which are planned activities that you take part in when the ship is at a specific port. We chose to do two excursions, one each at two different ports. The first excursion included a power boat ride, a private beach and all you can eat and drink (including a few types of alcohol). This excursion cost us $89.99 each or $179.98 total.

The second excursion we picked was much cheaper and was basically a trip and tour around a nature park in Roatan, Honduras. The excursion included transportation across the island, a tour of the nature park, interacting with scarlet macaw birds, small monkeys and many other sights and scenes in the park. This cost us $49.99 each or $99.98 total. We booked both of our excursions through Carnival for a bit of peace of mind, which you can read more about here.

Total Cost Before We Left For Vacation – $1,475.84

Costs Incurred While Traveling On Vacation

It wouldn’t be a vacation unless you spent money while on vacation right? The first cost we incurred after leaving our home for Port Canaveral was fuel. Our total fuel cost for traveling both to and back home from Port Canaveral was $94.43. We also incurred depreciation and other maintenance costs by driving our car, but we didn’t have any other cash costs related to our car.

In true vacation style, we stopped for dinner on the way to the cruise and for lunch on the way back from the cruise. We could have packed a dinner on our way, but decided against it because it wouldn’t feel like we had started our vacation. Plus, we budgeted for it so we knew we could afford it. In total, we spent $32.22 on two meals while traveling on our vacation.

On our way to Port Canaveral we stopped at the store to pick up a few cruise supplies that we knew we could get cheaper on land and then carry on to the boat ourselves. This included things like sunscreen, a limited number of non-alcoholic beverages and ponchos (just in case it rained in port). In total, we spent $28.84 on these supplies.

We spent a total of $155.49 while traveling.

So far we’ve spent $1,631.33 and we haven’t even arrived at Port Canaveral or the cruise ship yet! Don’t worry though, the costs get a bit lighter and we start having more fun once we get to Port Canaveral.

I have been on 5-6 cruises in Europe. My wife and I did the all inclusive honeymoon (45 years ago). It was fairly inexpensive. The important part of a honeymoon is to enjoy whatever choice you make. Ours was great!

I have never gone on a cruise before. Although I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. After all who doesn’t want a leisurely long vacation, right? At the moment I’m one to go for all-inclusive packages. But given the breakdown you have provided it doesn’t look bad at all. It seems reasonably priced, too. I think proper planning makes a big difference here. The best part is how much you enjoyed your vacation!

Hey there! I'm Lance! I created Money Manifesto to help others improve their finances. I hope you take a look around. Let me know if I can help you out with anything. Feel free to contact me! To learn more about me click here.

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About the Author

My name is Lance Cothern. I'm an accountant by day and personal finance blogger by night. I graduated from college debt free and passed the CPA exam shortly after.

After reading personal finance blogs for many years I finally decided to start my own blog to help people become financially successful. Read more about me and my blog or connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or my RSS feed.

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